Norm and I judged the New York Regional on July 24, well, Norm judged and I just kind of supervised :) [that's an inside joke for those of you that know what my day job is].  After spending WAY too much time driving to other events in the past only to return home completely exhausted, we decided to ride Amtrack to get there and back.  This was perhaps one of the best decisions we have ever made.  It was only about a 3 to 3.5 hour train ride, compared to a 5+ hour drive each way to New York City.  Not only did it take less time to get there, but we obviously also had greater freedom to relax, talk about OP, go over last minute details about the event yet again, discuss the most recent OPDeck updates, plan and begin programming some of the next updates to OPDeck, and other things.  We had tried to play a game of OP in the station while we were waiting, but the train was called before we could finish and it was too difficult to play where we were sitting on the train.  Oh well, we get to play each other a lot as it is.
    We arrived at Neutral Ground a little after 11:30am or so, and there were already about 20 players there.  By 12:30 or 1pm we had 33 players for the tournament.  Not the most I have seen at a New York OP Regional, but these were mostly serious players with less young, inexperienced kids than the other New York Regional I attended [I could not make it for the 1996 Regional, I competed in the 1997 Regional while still a "rookie" to OP and I could not take the day off from work last year to help judge that one.  Would you believe that I still hear from Norm about how he had to run that event alone?].
    Unfortunately, since I was helping to judge the event and had to pay attention to everything that was going on, I do not have any specific information about any of the games that took place.  I was only able to pay close attention to the final game, but mostly so that both players played fairly and accurately while keeping any spectators as far away as possible so they would not be a disturbance.  Norm and I both agreed that this event was very easy to run, and we want to thank the players that showed up for helping to make it that way.   There were no major rules calls to be made and no incidents of unsportsmanlike conduct to report.
    We ran four rounds of swiss and had planned for 3 rounds of single elimination.  Since we were running slightly ahead of schedule and still had plenty of time to catch an early train home, we decided to let the players vote for top 8 or top 16 for single elimination.  The downside to top 16 is that the rounds would have to be slightly shorter.  The downside to top 8 is that not all of the players with a record of 3-1 could make it, because we had 33 playersto begin with.  We only allowed the players with a 3-1 record to vote, because every other group with the same record would be easily biased one way or the other.  Most of the players voted for top 16, since they did not know which of them would make it in top 8 and which would have been left out.
    David Keffer made it past the first round of single elimination, despite the fact that he said he has only played two games of OverPower since Nationals last year, both of them the night before the Regional and against his brother.  He and Phil were in the same bracket and would have met in the semifinals if David had not lost in final 8.
    Phil Keffer beat Kenny (sorry, can't remember his last name right now) in the final, in either 3 or 4 rounds.  The first round was a push on Venture, and in the second round Kenny ventured what I thought was way too much and then lost, but I wasn't exactly looking at his hand.  After this round, it seemed like Phil had Kenny against the ropes and just had to put him away to finish the game.
    On the train ride home, Norm and I were pretty tired from the day, and were really glad we decided not to drive it this time.  The trip was relaxing and fast, as the day seemed like it was over before we even knew it.  If the OP CUP is successful, I may be willing to hold another big money event at Neutral Ground New York later this summer before school starts up again if I think a lot of people would be interested.